The Comfort of Far Away Places
by Aedammair
Summary: She's watched this thing between them as it unfurled like a fiddlehead in the spring sunlight with the keen interest of someone observing her own fate. As such, she knows they've been building towards this moment, this precise moment, for months.


These characters belong to SyFy. The cupcakes are all mine.

* * *

She smells like spun sugar and sunshine, the combination of a day spent half indoors and half basking in the afterglow of summer on the front porch. There's icing on the apple of her cheek, a fluffy white smear that mocks him from where she's standing at the island, shaking glittery sprinkles on the top of peaked-to-perfection cupcakes. She senses him before she sees him, smiles with her head still down. He thinks it makes her look devilish, a contrast to the innocence before him.

"There's lemonade on the counter," she says, still not looking at him. "Something stronger in the fridge, if you're interested."

He stays where he is, not because he isn't thirsty – he's spent the day outside, wandering around town and summer sunshine is hot, even for someone who doesn't feel temperatures and even in Maine – but because the view he has from the door is too good to give up just now. He'll wait until she moves, which she doesn't.

She started baking on her days off when the weather turned warm and wonderful a few weeks earlier. It makes it easier for him to find her when he needs to – she's either across from him in their shared office or arm deep in cupcake batter in her kitchen.

"What flavor today?" he asks, leaning against the rounded doorframe of the kitchen.

She does look up then, her smile even more mischievous than he'd though possible, and that smear of white frosting taunts him again. There are curls framing her face, strands of gold damp with the humidity of summer and oven heat, and he puts his hands in his pockets to stop his fingers from itching with temptation. "Use your nose," she says, head cocked to the side. She returns to her cupcakes and he closes his eyes as he takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the smell of her kitchen.

"Vanilla," he says quietly, eyes still closed. "Nutmeg in the icing." He opens his eyes to find her smiling at him, not close enough to touch but not far enough away to make touching her impossible. "Am I right?" he asks.

"Almost." She holds her hand out and there's a cupcake balanced precariously on her palm. He takes it from her, careful not to let his fingertips brush the soft skin of her hand, and sets it down on the counter to his right. She frowns at him. "Since when do you turn down cake?" she asks, curious.

He says nothing but instead takes a few steps toward her. He gets close enough to reach out and brush his fingers against the icing on her cheek. His finger tingles when it moves against her freckled skin, little tendrils of sensation weaving their way up his arm and warming his heart. Her eyes half close at the otherwise innocent contact and he feels her lean into his hand. Knowing his own limits, he pulls back before either of them can trip over the edge of that particular unacknowledged cliff. He licks the icing off his finger, feels her watching him.

"Nutmeg and rosewater," he says and she nods, still staring. "It's an interesting combination."

"It's a Thursday," she says by way of explanation and he cocks an eyebrow at her. She shrugs. "Thursdays are for adventures and daring," she says. There's something heady in her smile, something that tells him he's in for trouble and good lord, won't he like it. "Nathan," she says with that low, smoky voice that makes his name sound more like a moan than a word and his body instantly hums from his ears to his toes.

He looks at her, then, locks his eyes with hers and watches the tension that's always between them fill the space from corner to corner. Electricity crackles in the air around them and despite the evening sunshine outside, he thinks he smells ozone as his mouth goes dry. He wonders, briefly, if a drowning man can die of thirst.

The shadows of late evening have begun to fill the kitchen, stretching along the black and white tile floor. She's moving with them, each step taking her ever closer to her goal of him. She's watched this thing between them as it unfurled like a fiddlehead in the spring sunlight with the keen interest of someone observing her own fate. As such, she knows they've been building towards this moment, this precise moment, for months with each tiny step they've taken towards the comfort and familiarity of each other.

"Audrey," he says, his voice barely above a whisper and yet, it fills the room. He wants it to sound like a rally cry for sanity, but he wants her so badly it hurts – hurts a man who feels no pain – and so instead it rings through the air as a plea.

It's all she needs to give up on the tiny steps and take a leap of faith.

Literally.

He catches her mid-air, pulls her flush against his chest, and holds her there. The stay that way for what feels like hours, both motionless in their joined stance, until eventually she leans forward and brushes her lips against his in tentative experimentation. It's feather light and barely there but it's just enough of a kiss to unravel every reason they have for not doing this. When he pulls her impossibly closer and she tightens her grip on him, their lips meet with a bruising intensity and within the immense litany of that second kiss they both realize how far they've come undone and just how much neither of them cares.

She smells like spun sugar and sunshine and he tastes like nutmeg and contentment and home. It makes her think, for just a moment, that some things in the universe really are meant to go together.


End file.
